In its first redesign since Jan. 1, 2000, the style of pages will be noticeably different from those of the past decade. One aspect that we believe will be particularly helpful to readers is an increase in the size of the type that is being used for articles. We hope this will make articles easier to read.

We’re also freshening some of our regular features. For instance, our advice columnist will be Ask Amy, a column written by Amy Dickinson that focuses on family, work and children. She will appear on page 2, along with the weather forecast, history column, The Squawkbox and the Bright Side. We’re also moving the daily bridge column to page 2.

On the editorial page, we will be picking up two new columnists. Dick Yarbrough, whose column will appear on Saturdays, writes about things going on in Georgia. Syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson will join the mix on Fridays. We’ll continue to have opinion column favorites such as Cal Thomas, Cynthia Tucker, Charles Krauthammer and Thomas Sowell.

We’ve already debuted a new TV guide on Sundays that attempted to provide two things that readers have told us they wanted — a larger, easier-to-read type size for the daily programming and a list of best bets for each day of the week. That will continue to be printed in our Sunday SouthView section.

Possibly the biggest change will be on the comics page. From an economics standpoint, we were faced with having to pare down our offerings of daily comic strips. We kept the ones that we have found to be most popular and have added some new puzzles to that page, including the crossword puzzle. The full-color Sunday comics section will continue to be four pages with no changes to the features lineup.

Most days, we also will incorporate a page devoted to national and world news, including the top stories that you want to know about.

Overall, we hope that this will be a better daily experience for our readers. We know, however, that not every change we have made will be popular. You can contact me at (229) 888-9352 or email me at jim.hendricks@albanyherald.com to let us know how we’re doing.